The First Word: Infallible

On this day — John Bradley’s confirmation hearing promises fireworks; Leppart’s entry into the Senate race might finally put some spark into the race; the state’s budget crisis threatens to create a ‘lost generation,’ polling shows Texans back gambling to help fill the revenue shortfall as Tea Party groups put their foot down on using the Rainy Day fund, Leo Berman calls the YouTube’s ‘infallible,’ and we say goodbye to a legend swallowed by a time vortex as we shout out to a new man of mystery who promises a new form of entertainment.

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*Fireworks at Confirmation Hearing?*

John Bradley will face the Senate Confirmations Committee today in a bid to remain on the Texas Forensic Science Commission. Bradley has been criticized by civil rights groups and legislators in both parties for his actions on the committee — which critics have slammed as attempts to slow walk the investigation into the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham to death. Bradley has consistently denied the charges but a report issued by the committee, which said that the evidence used to convict Willingham was flawed, was widely seen as a rebuke to Bradley who argued that such a verdict was outside of the committee’s juridicition.

Bradley was appointed to the commission in the fall of 2009 when the Governor sacked several of the existing commissioners as they began to consider a report, which cast serious doubt on Willingham’s conviction. Bradley then cancelled a hearing on that report. The Observer’s David Mann reports that Bradley is likely to win confirmation.

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*New Horse, Old Race; Part Two*

It’s now officially, official, former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppart is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Kay Bailey Hutchison, who’s retiring when her team is over. Among the difficulties that Leppart will face: his lack of name recognition outside of the Metroplex and Austin; being a former big city mayor running in a Republican primary that has been hostile to big city politicians in the past; and keeping up with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (who’s personal fortune is estimated at more than half a billion dollars) in the money race. The Morning News’ Gromer Jeffers reports:

Recent polls still show Leppert with low name recognition outside of Dallas, but a high number of undecided voters.

Leppert says he’ll raise $7 million to $10 million for the primary election, and use some of his own money if necessary.

Dewhurst, who has the benefit of being a sitting lieutenant governor, can raise that and much more.

“Institutionally, he has a lot of advantages in enlisting the aid of others and, frankly, scaring people off who might be inclined to help someone else,” Henson said of Dewhurst. “At the very least, you keep some people on the sidelines.”

Leppert also has to adjust from operating in the nonpartisan arena of Dallas City Hall to the partisan, often cutthroat, environs of Texas Republican politics.

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*A ‘Lost Generation’*

TEXAS Grant is the state’s largest program for providing tuition aid to poor students who want to attend college and the House and Senate base budget proposals eviscerate the program. Higher education officials warn that the cuts to the program would make it significantly harder for those students to pay for a college degree. The Express-News’ Melissa Ludwig reports:

As lawmakers and universities crow about Texas’ success in “Closing the Gaps,” a strategic plan to erase the gulf between the haves and the have-nots in higher education, one of the chief linchpins of that success is teetering on the cliff of state budget cuts — TEXAS grants.

Started in 1999, the TEXAS grant program has provided more than $1.4 billion in grants to needy students. During that time, the college rolls have swelled by nearly half a million students.

Proposed budgets in the Legislature would cut TEXAS grants by 41 percent, allowing for renewals but cutting off all new grants for incoming freshmen.

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*Gambling On the Future*

While a recent Texas Tribune poll shows that majority of Texans support a significant expansion of gambling in Texas to help close the state’s massive budget shortfall and spending a large part of the state’s Rainy Day Fund while remaining fiercely opposed to tax increases (and sizeable spending cuts). While both sides say that legalizing casino gambling in Texas could generate more than $1 billion, passage would require two-thirds of both Houses of the legislature to sign on and there are significant questions about whether or not the votes are there.

It would cost the state $27 billion more to maintain current services than the current revenue estimate provides for and while no one would say that $1 billion is chump change; it still wouldn’t prevent massive cuts to public education, higher education and healthcare for the poor.

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Perish the Children

Paul Krugman writes in his latest Op-Ed in the New York Times that poor children will be the group most impacted by massive budget cuts at the state and local level. Krugman focuses his column, once again, on the ongoing budget crisis here in Texas and takes another swing at Gov. Rick Perry and his pronouncement of a the ‘Texas Century:

And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average.

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So how will that gap be closed? Given the already dire condition of Texas children, you might have expected the state’s leaders to focus the pain elsewhere. In particular, you might have expected high-income Texans, who pay much less in state and local taxes than the national average, to be asked to bear at least some of the burden.

But you’d be wrong. Tax increases have been ruled out of consideration; the gap will be closed solely through spending cuts. Medicaid, a program that is crucial to many of the state’s children, will take the biggest hit, with the Legislature proposing a funding cut of no less than 29 percent, including a reduction in the state’s already low payments to providers — raising fears that doctors will start refusing to see Medicaid patients. And education will also face steep cuts, with school administrators talking about as many as 100,000 layoffs.

The really striking thing about all this isn’t the cruelty — at this point you expect that — but the shortsightedness. What’s supposed to happen when today’s neglected children become tomorrow’s work force?

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*The Series of Tubes are ‘Infallible’*

Tea Party supporter and hard-line Republican Rep. Leo Berman reiterated his belief that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and thus isn’t qualified to be president of the United States, in an interview with the Texas Tribune that ran in the New York Times. Even though the Obama campaign (when first confronted with these rumors) produced a certificate of live birth as well as announcements of his birth in the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Berman remains unconvinced.

He said that he’s heard that Obama has used as many as 25 different Social Security numbers throughout his life. When asked how he came about this information, he said that he’s heard it online.

Though the Obama campaign produced a certificate of live birth from Hawaii, Mr. Berman was not swayed. “The latest rumor I hear, and I don’t know if this is true or not,” he said, “is that he’s used about 25 different Social Security numbers.”

Mr. Berman said he got his information from e-mail and online video clips. “YouTubes are infallible,” he said.

It was just a few days ago when we all had to say goodbye to @mayoremanuel — we laughed with him, cried with him, drank with him and uttered profanities with him. It wasn’t so much a Twitter feed as it was a piece of literature, given to us 140 characters at a time. While we still don’t know who wrote the thousands of tweets that delighted anyone and everyone who’s ever cared about politics or covered it for a living, the feed provided a showcase for what Twitter feed could become. Quaxlerod, Hambone, Alexrod’s Civic and Speedo and Carl the Intern — we will forever mourn your passing from this universe into the one where you truly belong. Just be sure to come back in 2015, when this universe’s Rahm runs for re-election.

What comes next? Well, if you dig ‘inside the capitol’ humor and jokes — @staffermove isn’t a bad place to start. Yes, this shout out is totally because @staffermove totally followed our bureau’s new Twitter feed @txpoliticsblog.